Odds & Ends

A blind date in Central London ended with a woman being robbed blind by a man who snatched her cell phone after she refused to go Dutch. According to The Daily Mail, Fakhara Sultana met 32-year-old Kishore Nimmala through the online dating site Zoosk. The two hooked up in person at the Ruby Blue Bar in Leicester Square for a couple rounds of drinks. When it came time to settle up the tab, Nimmala asked his date to pay for her share of the £54 ($84) bill. “Ms. Sultana informed the defendant that she didn’t have any money with her and that she had assumed that he would pay for the evening,” said prosecutor Helen Thomas. “At that point the defendant became angry and so their evening came to an abrupt close.” Sultana left the bar and started heading toward Charing Cross Underground station. Sultana testified in Southwark Crown Court that Nimmala followed her and eventually stole the cell phone out of her hand. Nimmala admitted to taking the phone but said he had no intention of permanently depriving her of the device—he merely intended to keep it until she coughed up £27. No word on whether the two will be going on a second date.

Dateline: England

Motorists are thinking twice now about parking near a half-built London skyscraper—not so affectionately dubbed “The Walkie Talkie”—because it is allegedly melting cars. The glare coming off the building is so intense that at least one car owner says it caused part of his Jaguar to melt. Businessman Martin Lindsay claims that his Jaguar's mirror, panels and hood ornament have all melted from the concentrated sunlight reflected off the 34-story edifice. Nearby shop owner Ali Akay told reporters the building also burned a hole in a welcome mat at a barber shop across the street. “We were working and just saw smoke coming off the carpet,” Akay was quoted as saying. “This is a health and safety issue. They should have looked into this before they built it.” Developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf said in a joint statement they are taking the complaints seriously and are looking into how the distinctive building reflects sunlight.

Dateline: England

An animal lover in Berkshire has decided she’s willing to wait up to eight years to recover a £300 ($470) diamond earring her pet chicken ate. Claire Lennon, 38, said the six-month-old chicken named Sarah was sitting on her shoulder when she felt a “sudden sharp pain” in her earlobe. At that point she realized that Sarah—who is actually a rooster—had gobbled down the shiny bauble. Lennon and her partner, who had given her the expensive earrings, locked the chicken in a cage and spent the next few days sifting through her poop. The jewelry never reappeared, though, so they took Sarah to a vet. “The X-ray showed it was stuck firmly in the gizzard,” Lennon told the Daily Telegraph. “The vet said he could operate to recover the earring, but that it might kill Sarah, which would devastate our 6-year-old daughter Mia, who dotes on the chicken.” Lennon’s only recourse now is to wait until Sarah dies of old age. “We are probably looking at another eight years before I get my earring back,” admitted Lennon.

Dateline: Australia

Black Portuguese millipedes are being blamed for a rear-end collision involving two trains after hundreds of the tiny critters were found squished on the train tracks. “Millipedes are one of the factors we are going to take into account,” David Hynes, spokesperson for Western Australia’s Public Transit Authority told Reuters news service. Six passengers were treated for minor injuries after a train pulling into a station 25 miles north of Perth ran into the back of a stationary one. This isn’t the first time that bugs have been suspected of causing a railroad accident. “What happened in previous incidents is trains which were traveling at speed have gone over an infestation, crushed them and made the tracks slimy.”

Dateline: Arkansas

Employees at a Jonesboro Kmart opened up the store and discovered 21-year-old Robert Pry passed out in a storage room “covered in vomit and urine” after hiding out in the store and going on an all-night aerosol can huffing binge. When police arrived, Pry admitted that he’d sucked up 16 cans of air duster before passing out. Police found several more cans of the product in a truck Pry had borrowed from a friend. Pry said he’d spent $100 of his own money on the product because he is “addicted to huffing.” When he ran out of cash, Pry conspired to hide out in the store after it closed. When the lights went out, Pry located the aisle full of air duster and “huffed all night.” He faces charges of commercial burglary and theft in conjunction with the inhalant binge.